Bill Maher touched on this point in Religulous in the trailer church scene...

1) Atheism is a luxury. You can't have Atheism without education (or rather you can't have de-conversion). Mentally the poor don't have much to lean on in this life so the empty promise of an afterlife keeps them truckin' so to speak. I have a house a car, my xbox, my job, I can afford to reject empty promises but you will never be able to take God from a man who has nothing else.

2) In the inner city the church and the ever linked extended family are the institutions that support most people, that organize the community, that fight for change. The disenfranchised will turn to these little churches for help and comfort and the hood entrepreneurs will always be there to found churches in their living rooms and what not....Faith, sex and drugs are the biggest industries in the hood.

Education really doesn't have any thing to do with it. Education helps, if you study religion and/or philosophy. That doesn't have any thing to do with formal education either, however. It would just involve taking some time out of your days to notice how much of a joke theism is. There are obviously examples of highly educated individuals, who couldn't care less about being rational.

It's sort of cultural. Oppression, frustration and hopelessness, more than poverty, add to it. Those things are just all included together. When you are dealing with majority of the people around you taking on a belief, without any regard, credulously, that makes it easier for you to pick up on it. That applies to all people. It basically becomes a domino effect in a society when people start questioning, when there is pressure against the idea, which is why Santa doesn't usually last past grade school. It's not serious, it's just surviving through life, with god as an unquestioned part of it. If you are part of a group, culture of people, oppressed and struggling, the amount of time you actually have to shake credulity is basically none. Too busy surviving. Less liberty, less time, less enlightenment.

Some look at it as a Pascal Wager, but it is more like a free lottery ticket. If you don't have a life to begin with, there is absolutely no argument to the wishful thinking and hoping for something more. There is no wager. One could bring up that, wanting it doesn't make it true, but think how much that would affect a person, with faith as their only motivation and only hope for ever having true peace and comfort.

The Paradox Of Fools And Wise Men:
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser men so full of doubts.” ― Bertrand Russell

Let me say this, I have a co-worker (Black) who found out I was an Atheist after I confronted him when he said that the Earth was "All green" in the beginning because the Bible says so . He then proceeded to ask, " So you believe that there are other stars and planets, and that the sun is bigger than the Earth ? " . Really?! I am not sure if this is a product of religion, self ignorance (Too cool for school), or the product of the current US education system.

I have noticed this issue aswell and it seems to just carry on through the generations and they never have the opportunity to learn anything different, most of the time.

" My friends. You bow to no one. " - Aragorn

"A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows. " — Samuel Clemens

Actually that's an excellent point. There are some Jewish people who have been able to divorce themselves from the deity while remaining true (more or less) to their cultural heritage, which in turn takes on a different and less dogmatic meaning.

Week long parties...

I hadn't really thought about it. But I do know many people who do attend church not because of a deep belief or whatever but because it's what they do on Sundays -- it's where their friends are and their family is tied to it...

I guess there's a glimmer of hope that they can keep their heritage and cultural gatherings without it being "religious" and not even secular. Taking god completely out of it all...

Would be nice...

But as if to knock me down, reality came around
And without so much as a mere touch, cut me into little pieces

(09-08-2013 12:03 AM)WeasleyFromTheShire Wrote: Let me say this, I have a co-worker (Black) who found out I was an Atheist after I confronted him when he said that the Earth was "All green" in the beginning because the Bible says so . He then proceeded to ask, " So you believe that there are other stars and planets, and that the sun is bigger than the Earth ? " . Really?! I am not sure if this is a product of religion, self ignorance (Too cool for school), or the product of the current US education system.

I have noticed this issue aswell and it seems to just carry on through the generations and they never have the opportunity to learn anything different, most of the time.

(09-08-2013 12:03 AM)WeasleyFromTheShire Wrote: Let me say this, I have a co-worker (Black) who found out I was an Atheist after I confronted him when he said that the Earth was "All green" in the beginning because the Bible says so . He then proceeded to ask, " So you believe that there are other stars and planets, and that the sun is bigger than the Earth ? " . Really?! I am not sure if this is a product of religion, self ignorance (Too cool for school), or the product of the current US education system.

I have noticed this issue aswell and it seems to just carry on through the generations and they never have the opportunity to learn anything different, most of the time.

(09-08-2013 12:03 AM)WeasleyFromTheShire Wrote: Let me say this, I have a co-worker (Black) who found out I was an Atheist after I confronted him when he said that the Earth was "All green" in the beginning because the Bible says so . He then proceeded to ask, " So you believe that there are other stars and planets, and that the sun is bigger than the Earth ? " . Really?! I am not sure if this is a product of religion, self ignorance (Too cool for school), or the product of the current US education system.

I have noticed this issue aswell and it seems to just carry on through the generations and they never have the opportunity to learn anything different, most of the time.

Did you slap him and call him assorted abusive names?

I should have guys, but lets say size was a difference and the typical fast food worker doesn't have the best self control. So repurcussions could have been bad for myself. I should have showed him that picture I Am .

There is indeed people this ignorant though.

" My friends. You bow to no one. " - Aragorn

"A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows. " — Samuel Clemens

If I recall correctly, I think a "black" atheist by the handle of "Crommunist" said it best when responding to a person who asked why so many black people are religious (christian?) when their source material is so racist and destructive towards black people.

He responded that if you were a Jew, and someone threw you a life preserver with a Nazi swastika on it... would you take it?

Granted the life preserver - meaning religion - is more of a lead weight, but that's besides the point. It's that it's perceived as something uplifting and helpful.

And that goes to the point mentioned in previous posts here that disenfranchised or persecuted peoples are more likely to be religious.